The news cycle spins fast and flimsy these days. Late Friday night, TechCrunch posted an unsourced rumour that CBS-owned Last.fm handed a “giant dump” of user data to the RIAA. The music org was said to have requested the data, which could be used to find users who are listening to as-yet-unreleased tracks, after U2’s upcoming album was leaked two weeks before release.

But Last.fm came out fighting. After its New York-based CBS (NYSE: CBS) spokesperson told TechCrunch “To our knowledge, no data has been made available to RIAA”, Richard Jones (pictured), one of the three remaining co-founders in London, wrote in the site’s comments after midnight: “I